BiblioVault - Books about Phillips, Philip

Archaeological Survey in the Lower Mississippi Alluvial Valley, 1940–1947

Philip Phillips, James A. Ford, and James B. Griffin; edited and with a new introduction by Stephen Williams

University of Alabama Press, 2003

Documents prehistoric human occupation along the lower reaches of the Mississippi River

A Dan Josselyn Memorial Publication

The Lower Mississippi Survey was initiated in 1939 as a joint undertaking of three institutions: the School of Geology at Louisiana State University, the Museum of Anthropology at the University of Michigan, and the Peabody Museum at Harvard. Fieldwork began in 1940 but was halted during the war years. When fieldwork resumed in 1946, James Ford had joined the American Museum of Natural History, which assumed co-sponsorship from LSU. The purpose of the Lower Mississippi Survey (LMS)—a term used to identify both the fieldwork and the resultant volume—was to investigate the northern two-thirds of the alluvial valley of the lower Mississippi River, roughly from the mouth of the Ohio River to Vicksburg. This area covers about 350 miles and had been long regarded as one of the principal hot spots in eastern North American archaeology.

Phillips, Ford, and Griffin surveyed over 12,000 square miles, identified 382 archaeological sites, and analyzed over 350,000 potsherds in order to define ceramic typologies and establish a number of cultural periods. The commitment of these scholars to developing a coherent understanding of the archaeology of the area, as well as their mutual respect for one another, enabled the publication of what is now commonly considered the bible of southeastern archaeology. Originally published in 1951 as volume 25 of the Papers of the Peabody Museum of American Archaeology and Ethnology, this work has been long out of print.

Because Stephen Williams served for 35 years as director of the LMS at Harvard, succeeding Phillips, and was closely associated with the authors during their lifetimes, his new introduction offers a broad overview of the work’s influence and value, placing it in a contemporary context.

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Method and Theory in American Archaeology

Gordon R. Willey

University of Alabama Press, 2001

A Dan Josselyn Memorial Publication

This invaluable classic provides the framework for the development of American archaeology during the last half of the 20th century.

In 1958 Gordon R. Willey and Philip Phillips first published Method and Theory in American Archaeology—a volume that went through five printings, the last in 1967 at the height of what became known as the new, or processual, archaeology. The advent of processual archaeology, according to Willey and Phillips, represented a "theoretical debate . . . a question of whether archaeology should be the study of cultural history or the study of cultural process."

Willey and Phillips suggested that little interpretation had taken place in American archaeology, and their book offered an analytical perspective; the methods they described and the structural framework they used for synthesizing American prehistory were all geared toward interpretation. Method and Theory served as the catalyst and primary reader on the topic for over a decade.

This facsimile reprint edition of the original University of Chicago Press volume includes a new foreword by Gordon R. Willey, which outlines the state of American archaeology at the time of the original publication, and a new introduction by the editors to place the book in historical context. The bibliography is exhaustive. Academic libraries, students, professionals, and knowledgeable amateurs will welcome this new edition of a standard-maker among texts on American archaeology.

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Pre-Columbian Shell Engravings from the Craig Mound at Spiro, Oklahoma

Philip Phillips and James A. Brown

Harvard University Press, 1978

The Craig Mound at Spiro, Oklahoma was the richest source of pre-Columbian shell engravings in North America, a treasury of early native American artistry. From about 1250 AD until the early part of this century, it remained virtually undisturbed, but in 1933, it was plundered by commercial diggers. The fragments of the shell cups and gorgets became widely scattered, as museums and private collectors sought to acquire them. It is only through the publication of this work that the pieces have been put back together.

These lavishly illustrated volumes showcase the variety of iconography and of the engravers.

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Pre-Columbian Shell Engravings from the Craig Mound at Spiro, Oklahoma

Philip Phillips and James A. Brown

Harvard University Press, 1978

The Craig Mound at Spiro, Oklahoma was the richest source of pre-Columbian shell engravings in North America, a treasury of early native American artistry. From about A.D. 1250 until the early part of this century, it remained virtually undisturbed, but in 1933, it was plundered by commercial diggers. The fragments of the shell cups and gorgets became widely scattered, as museums and private collectors sought to acquire them. It is only through the publication of this work that the pieces have been put back together and that the variety of iconography and the skill of the engravers can be appraised.

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Pre-Columbian Shell Engravings from the Craig Mound at Spiro, Oklahoma

Large-Format Limited Edition Set

Philip Phillips and James A. Brown

Harvard University Press

Unequaled in North America as a single source of prehistoric figurative and decorative art, the Craig burial mound was plundered by commercial diggers in 1933. Hundreds of fragile shell artifacts covered with engraved designs were quickly sold and, whole or fragmented, were scattered in public and private collections across the country.

For the past ten years, Dr. Philip Phillips, Honorary Curator of Southeastern Archaeology at Harvard, has supervised a massive project that has involved making rubbings and line drawings of this whole corpus of Southeastern Indian art, matching hundreds of fragments, and classifying the engraved designs by schools.

Volume VI, the last volume of the set, deals with the final phase of the Craig style, then concludes with a summary of the study, a bibliography, and an extensive index.

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Shell Gorgets

Styles of the Late Prehistoric and Protohistoric Southeast

Jeffrey P. Brain and Philip Phillips

Harvard University Press, 1996

Engraved shell gorgets are found throughout prehistoric southeastern North America. The artistic sophistication of these gorgets lends itself to the sensitive stylistic and chronological analysis offered here. In part one of this volume, the gorgets are classified into styles; in part two, described archaeological sites are analyzed for associations and chronology; and in part three, information about the gorgets is correlated with other artifactual evidence, and patterns of intersite distribution are examined for chronological insights and dynamic interpretations.

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